Indian travellers will be able to fly non-stop to Amman (Jordan) and Madrid (Spain) in 2025 with the restoration of direct connectivity.
While Royal Jordanian Airlines is returning to Mumbai in March after ten years, Spanish airline Iberojet plans to start flights between Madrid and Delhi from April 2025.
These are among a growing list of overseas carriers eyeing a share of India’s international traffic. Royal Brunei Airlines, Cambodia Angkor Air and VietJet Thailand launched their flights to India in 2024. Airlines from Europe including Wizz Air and Aegean Airlines are exploring new routes to India as they receive new long-range aircraft between now and 2027.
This push comes amid a growth in international travel to/from India. The new flights will support inbound travel too.
Iberojet’s weekly flight will support Spanish tour operators which specialise in leisure tours to India, said Carlos Garrido de la Cierva, spokesperson of Avoris, the holding company of Iberojet. Indian travellers would be able to purchase tickets from the airline’s website, he added.
Prior to the pandemic, Air India flew to Madrid and it has not restarted the flight. Plans for a new non-stop connection from Madrid comes in the wake of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s visit to India in October. The two sides have designated 2026 as India-Spain Year of Culture, Tourism and Artificial Intelligence during his visit.
Tourist flow
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, over 2.5 lakh Indian tourists visit Spain every year while India receives around 40,000 Spanish tourists. Over 61 lakh foreign tourists visited India between January and August registering a year-on-year growth of 3.7 per cent. Foreign tourist arrivals, however, are still 10 per cent below pre-pandemic level. On the outbound side trips traffic is surging.
Malaysia has received over a million Indian tourists in the first eleven months of 2025 and has extended visa-free entry until 2026. Countries like Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam have also seen strong double digit growth in Indian arrivals.
Airlines are thus keen to tap this growth opportunity. “Wizz Air is excited to take deliveries of the new Airbus A321XLR variant next year. While it will allow us to connect the remote dots on our existing network map such as London-Jeddah or Milan- Abu Dhabi, we don’t rule out the possibilities to unlock new markets such as India,” an airline spokesperson said.
Aegean Airlines from Greece will receive its four Airbus A321Neo aircraft in 2026 and 2027. These planes will have an extra fuel tank and the airline intends to use them to launch new routes outside Europe. These could include destinations in West Asia, Central Africa or India.